Agriculture

Sonja Hillgren Downs, 58, a renowned journalist who specialized in farming and agriculture, died of a brain tumor Tuesday at home in Center City. Under the byline of Sonja Hillgren, she broke such stories as the Reagan administration's plan to count ketchup as a vegetable in school food programs, and the farm crisis in the early 1980s. Growing up in Sioux Falls, S.D. - in a home where politics was breakfast conversation, her father, Ralph Hillgren, was a newspaperman, state legislator and farm owner - she gravitated to farm journalism early in her career.

A decade ago, students in the vocational agriculture program at Owen J. Roberts High School learned about milk and crop production, skills they applied upon graduation to the myriad farms that dotted the fertile hills around here. Now those farms are mostly gone, and so is traditional agriculture education. Subjects now include landscaping, horticulture, floral arranging, animal and pet care, forestry and environmental conservation. "Production-based agricultural education was not working," said Peg Tinder, an agriculture teacher.

Calling for a "radical transformation" of the Soviet farm system, Mikhail S. Gorbachev yesterday opened a crucial Communist Party meeting by proposing that the agriculture super-ministry he created three years ago be abolished. The Soviet leader also called for collective and state farms to be drastically redesigned to be run as cooperatives by groups of leaseholders. The speech concluded the first day of a two-day plenary meeting of the Central Committee, whose 307 members officially set party policy.

America's food supply is vulnerable to an agricultural bioterrorist attack, and the United States is unable to prevent it, poorly equipped to spot it, and not prepared to respond to it, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday. "The nation has inadequate plans to deal with agricultural bioterrorism," said the 174-page report by 14 of the nation's top veterinary, plant, disease, insect, biology, genetics and bioterrorism scientists. The scientists, who defined the threat as "low-tech, high-impact bioterrorism," praised the Bush administration for realizing there was such a problem and trying to address it quickly.

Deep inside a new laboratory near Trenton, beyond the lobby where an 8-foot ceramic praying mantis hangs on the wall, about 10,000 tiny wasps are flying around inside pickle jars. Imported from Colombia, the wasps are smaller than gnats and harmless - unless you happen to be a Colorado potato beetle. In fact, agriculture officials say, the wasps could wipe out enough beetles to save New Jersey farmers millions of dollars, while eliminating the need for spraying fields in the state with thousands of pounds of potentially dangerous pesticides.

Blakey T. Deal, 76, of Wynnewood, a veterinarian who made house calls, died Monday at Lankenau Hospital. Dr. Deal, a 5-foot-11 blond with a cleft chin, included among his many clients two former mayors, Frank L. Rizzo and Richardson Dilworth. "I used to tell him he worked like a country doctor," said his wife of 48 years, Eleanor McEwing Deal. "He had a big heart. " On one of those house calls, Dr. Deal attended to a Tennessee walking horse of Rizzo's that had come up lame.

In Port Antonio, Jamaica, they know plenty about tropical fruits and vegetables. In Doylestown, the specialities are agribusiness and entrepreneurship. But in the next few years, agriculture students and faculty in these distant locations will become more proficient in areas they now know little about. Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township is launching an extensive exchange program with the College of Agriculture in Port Antonio to share information and broaden its international outreach.

Forget atom smashers, electricity, cars, telephones, even air-conditioning. The most important invention in human history was . . . cereal. We're not talking Cocoa Puffs, but the more basic varieties of grain. According to the latest scientific research, agriculture began in the Near East about 11,000 years ago, when our ancestors learned to sow and harvest the seeds of native grasses, gradually turning them into wheat, barley and corn. In the space of a few centuries, after wandering for millions of years, groups of hunters and gatherers settled down and became the world's first farmers, scholars say. About a thousand years later, their descendants brought sheep and goats in from the wild and started tending flocks.

It's called Swine Shine, and when Bruce Smith sprayed the $12-a-bottle skin and hair conditioner onto the black-and-white back of a pig named Curly, then vigorously worked it in with the firm white bristles of a pink-handled brush, the snorting, snarling, 250-pound animal's coat actually shimmered. That was a nice touch for a hog getting ready to strut its stuff at the Pennsylvania Farm Show this week. Unfortunately for Smith - and the approximately 4,500 other pig farmers in Pennsylvania - primping and preening pigs for the show is the only thing that's pretty about the pork industry right now. Nationwide, prices paid to hog farmers have plummeted.

Too often it takes a drought or a big freeze to make us wake up to the reality of our food sources. Eastern markets have become accustomed to plentiful supplies of fruits and vegetables out of season, luxuries that are totally dependent upon benevolent weather to the west and south, and low-cost energy. We forget that nature specializes in slipping in an occasional nasty moment, this winter leading to higher prices for orange juice and lettuce. Farmers aren't so apt to be caught off guard, for the vagaries of sun, rain and wind are the elements they deal with year in and year out. It's not so easy to depend upon food production to support a family; there is no steady salary, no guaranteed benefits.

THESSALONIKI, Greece - Cheap potato fever is spreading in austerity-pummeled Greece. It started last month when a producer from the northern Nevrokopi area, fed up with selling to wholesalers at a loss, off-loaded 24 tons at cost prices directly to consumers in the town of Katerini. Now, he has been swamped by demand. Lefteris Kessopoulos said Thursday that he has been contacted by resident groups in Athens, the northern towns of Kavala and Larissa - even Pyrgos, 620 miles south of Nevrokopi.

The federal official in charge of the U.S. food stamp program said Thursday that Pennsylvania's plan to tie food-stamp benefits to people's assets will save the state nothing and create more problems than it solves. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in Philadelphia to discuss President Obama's State of the Union message, said the asset test "is not going to save the commonwealth a single dime," and would, in fact, cost the state money to implement. Mayor Nutter, at a City Hall news conference with Vilsack, was more pointed.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years means most offerings - including the always popular pizza - will come with less sodium, more whole grains, and a wider selection of fruits and vegetables on the side. First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new guidelines during a visit Wednesday with elementary students. Michelle Obama, also joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, said youngsters would learn better if they don't have growling stomachs at school.

When Jerry Frecon became the agricultural agent for Gloucester County 30 years ago, he took a distinctive pleasure in riding the back roads of Deptford. "Summer nights, you couldn't miss the smell - pig farms, with the pigs who fed on waste and garbage," said Frecon with a laugh, his New Jersey Peach Promotion Council cap a bit askew. There are no pig farms in Deptford now, just big-box stores, said Frecon, who is spending his last year as Gloucester County's ag agent - the go-to guy for farmers and nursery owners with complaints, problems, and ideas.

E accept EBT cards for candy and gum. " I recently saw this message in a local drugstore next to rows of sweets and other impulse items. Printed on small white signs, the notice was placed alongside ads for weekly sale items. Then I spotted more of these messages decorating the candy aisles at another chain. EBT stands for "electronic benefit transfer. " The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) provides aid for children and families in need. One is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

A South Jersey Democrat who allegedly took nude pictures of himself and e-mailed them to a Chicago woman he had never met resigned Tuesday as a Cumberland County freeholder. The naked photos of Louis N. Magazzu, 53, were posted last month on a website (magazzuwatch.com) created by a political opponent, Carl B. Johnson of Millville. Shortly afterward, Magazzu was confronted by Freeholder Director Bill Whelan, also a Democrat. "I asked Mr. Magazzu to step down three weeks ago," Whelan said.

A powerful South Jersey Democrat, who allegedly took nude pictures of himself and emailed them to a Chicago woman he had never met, resigned today. The naked photos of Louis N. Magazzu, 53, a Cumberland County Freeholder, had been posted on a website created by an opponent. Carl B. Johnson, of Millville, put the pictures up on magazzuwatch.com last month. Shortly after, Magazzu was confronted by Freeholder Director, Bill Whelan, also a Democrat. "I asked Mr. Maggazu to step down three weeks ago," Whelan said.

Bourbon, all 270 pounds of Hampshire-cross hog, was grunting merrily as his owner, Kyle Dupper, tried to give him a little nudge. Dupper, 18, of Woolwich, is the ambassador of the Gloucester County 4-H Club, the leader of 450 members in 52 clubs from kindergarten through the first year of college. He has been showing dairy cows, steers, and hogs at the annual 4-H Fair. Because he is headed for college in a few weeks, Bourbon will be his last show hog. Dupper will sell him at the 4-H hog auction Friday night - and Bourbon will most likely be ham and bacon by next week.

Standing in a sunny farm field Friday, Jason Leonard and Zachary Weiserth, both 9, acknowledged that they had never eaten squash, but, having just picked a boxful, they said they'd like to give the emerald veggie a try. They liked something else as well. "I like how we picked the plants to help other people who are in need," Jason said. Yesterday, Jason, Zachary, and 70 other Washington Township schoolchildren did both - harvested and helped. For about a dozen years, Duffield's Farm in Sewell and the Washington Township schools have joined to teach children about where their food comes from and the importance of helping those less fortunate.

From the fields that Ed Stella Jr. owns in Upper Pittsgrove, Salem County, "miles and miles and miles of farmland" stretch in every direction. Stella wants to take 512 acres out of production to erect 80 megawatts of solar panels. The change, he said, would be "like a grain of pepper in the saltshaker. " The proposal has irked some farmers and officials in a town known for fiercely guarding its identity as an agricultural community. They worry Stella could be the first of many developers to convert the region's sunny fields of spinach, corn, and sod into power generators.